Game of Thrones Review!

So a while ago I posted a blog post about what I was currently reading, and unfortunately it has taken me until now to finish that book! Game Of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, which is the first in the A Song Of Ice And Fire series, was the book that has taken me all this time to finish, and I thought it would be a good idea to write a review!

"Summers span decades.

Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle

for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north,Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must... and dead nemy is a thing of beauty. The old gods have no power in the south, Stark's family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, a vengeance-mad boy has gown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities beyond the sea. Heir of the mad Dragon King deposed by Robert, he claims the Iron Throne.''

The fact that it took me a very long time to finish this book has nothing to do with the book itself, so don't take that in a bad light! I just had a lot of work to do for university, which left very little reading time! This book is a great read, and whilst yes it is very long, it keeps you glued to it, especially when you have the time to sit down and get stuck into it!

We meet some very vital families in this book the Starks, the Baratheons, the Lanasters and many more.   You very quickly find your favourite within the families, with the characters being easy to love, tolerate or out right hate. I personally found that Dany, Arya, Tyrion and Jon were my favourites, but it seems like they are supposed to be some of the many we love. I also personally found the people that I wish would have been killed off, which are also the people I believe you are supposed to hate as the reader.

This book is written in a way that makes it appear that there is a main plot, which follows particular characters, ( I won't say which), but it also has subplots running along with it that feed into each other and what appears to be the main plot, to make a story that spans a vast kingdom, and beyond that. I like how the plot appears and how the story uses this to progress at a steady rate across the 780 pages (not including the appendix). I also really enjoyed how the book is made up of 72 chapters, each of them written in the third person perspective of a character within the story. I feel that this helps us to know these chosen characters a lot better, and it makes it easier to understand Westeros and even across the sea in the free lands.

Game of Thrones does offer something that has been written about it a thousand times over, the fact that you just never know wether good of evil is going to win out. With most books you can see which side is going to win, and with a lot you know that the main characters (which are normally the good side), will win out and everything will win happily. This is not the case with Game of Thrones, you never have any faith that good will win, and when you get a tiny bit of hope, something happens and you are right back to not knowing.

I really enjoyed reading Game of Thrones, and would recommend it to others. Many people have seen the tv programme by HBO but have not read the books, I would say that you need to read the books, as I have personally read the book and seen the first series, there are things that are different, obviously, and some things that work better in either the book or tv show. I am currently reading the second book in the series 'A Clash of Kings' so there may be a review up for that soon!

Bye for now :)